- Consumer electronics stocks lead gains
- Obama names new Cabinet
- Banks down after settling with government/Fannie

Dow Jones Industrials: -0.38%
Nasdaq Comp.: -0.09%
S&P 500: -0.31%

The main US market averages finished slightly lower, weighed down weakness in large capitalisation stocks. That ahead of the start of the first quarter earnings season, tomorrow, after aluminium maker Alcoa publishes its latest quarterly results.

Banks ended in a slightly mixed fashion despite the Basel Banking Supervision Committee having eased its calendar – and the terms – for the implementation of lender’s new liquidity requirements. This on news that a group of institutions has reached a multi-billion dollar settlement with Federal authorities. In parallel, Bank of America settled with Fannie Mae over most of the issues they had pending.

Economists cut their forecasts for Treasury yields in 2013 to the least since Bloomberg began compiling the predictions, last July. Ten-year yields will be 2.14% by Dec. 31st, according to a survey of banks and securities companies as of January 4th.

Mortgage finance and consumer electronics in the lead

Bank of America will pay Fannie Mae $3.6bn to resolve home-loan repurchase claims. The latter, which for all intents and purposes enjoys the US government’s backing, had been claiming that the lender had knowingly mis-represented the risks surrounding the mortgage instruments which it had marketed to it.

Equity Residential agreed to sell real estate properties to a joint venture of Goldman Sachs Group and Greystar Real Estate Partners for $1.5bn.

Bank of America will pay Fannie Mae $3.6bn to resolve home-loan repurchase claims. The latter, which for all intents and purposes enjoys the US government’s backing, had been claiming that the lender had knowingly mis-represented the risks surrounding the mortgage instruments which it had marketed to it.

The lender will also pay $6.75bn to repurchase residential mortgages sold to Fannie Mae. The question which naturally arose is whether the fact that a deal was being reached now reflected greater confidence on the part of Bank of America over the outlook for those same instruments.

Federal regulators on Monday reached an $8.5bn settlement with 10 financial institutions over foreclosure abuses. Amongst the banks included were Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase.

Yahoo! ended down by 2.3% after Sanford C. Bernstein downgraded the shares.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded their view on Amazon.com to ‘overweight’ from ‘equalweight’ before.

Roche took its bid for rival Illumina off the table, the company’s Chief Executive Officer has told the Swiss press.

Barclays lowered its target price on the shares of Apple to $740 from $800 before.

From a sector stand-point the best performers were to be seen in following sectors: Mortgage finance (2.75%), Consumer electronics (2.17%) and Electronic office equipment (1.84%).

Not to be lost sight of, the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is slated to begin tomorrow.

Acting as a backdrop, over the weekend US Senate majority leader Mitch Mc.Connell indicated that Republicans are not willing to raise taxes any further. This initial stance may just be a part of the negotiation process expected to take place over the next month approximately.

Also worth mentioning, as far as market ‘technicals’ are concerned were: after rising by 20% Chinese equities have entered a ‘bull market’ and levels of volatility have hit relative new lows in the US (the VIX fell below 14 last Friday).

Other asset classes flat
10 year US Treasury yields finished flat at 1.90%

Front month West Texas crude futures rose by 0.06% to the 93.25 dollar per barrel mark on the NYMEX.

S&P 500 – Risers
Celgene Corp. (CELG) $85.73 +4.43%
Windstream Corp. (WIN) $9.67 +3.77%
Amazon.Com Inc. (AMZN) $268.46 +3.59%
Varian Medical Systems Inc. (VAR) $75.19 +3.40%
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) $99.20 +3.36%
Micron Technology Inc. (MU) $7.18 +3.16%
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) $2.67 +3.09%
Harman International Industries Inc. (HAR) $47.53 +2.81%
Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI) $11.65 +2.46%
Lennar Corp. Class A (LEN) $41.22 +2.46%

S&P 500 – Fallers
First Solar Inc. (FSLR) $31.37 -6.60%
Tesoro Corp. (TSO) $40.22 -5.45%
QEP Resources Inc (QEP) $29.78 -5.07%
Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM) $28.01 -4.14%
Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) $60.25 -3.68%
Safeway Inc. (SWY) $17.64 -3.61%
Monster Beverage Corp (MNST) $50.06 -3.53%
Apache Corp. (APA) $80.35 -3.43%
Phillips 66 Common Stock (PSX) $51.36 -3.35%
J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP) $19.96 -3.20%

Dow Jones I.A – Risers
McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) $90.91 +1.18%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $44.69 +0.88%
AT&T Inc. (T) $35.39 +0.45%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $21.25 +0.43%
American Express Co. (AXP) $59.86 +0.42%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $42.12 +0.36%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $95.21 +0.31%
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) $15.17 +0.20%
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD) $45.80 +0.15%
3M Co. (MMM) $95.49 +0.13%

Dow Jones I.A – Fallers
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $50.97 -2.34%
Boeing Co. (BA) $76.13 -2.01%
Alcoa Inc. (AA) $9.10 -1.73%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $73.06 -1.35%
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) $87.93 -1.16%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $37.30 -0.96%
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) $68.40 -0.96%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $20.29 -0.94%
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $68.62 -0.68%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $109.75 -0.68%

Nasdaq 100 – Risers
Celgene Corp. (CELG) $85.73 +4.43%
Amazon.Com Inc. (AMZN) $268.46 +3.59%
Catamaran Corp (CTRX) $51.77 +3.40%
Micron Technology Inc. (MU) $7.18 +3.16%
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX) $47.29 +3.14%
Vodafone Group Plc ADS (VOD) $26.54 +2.83%
Citrix Systems Inc. (CTXS) $68.16 +2.42%
Cerner Corp. (CERN) $83.02 +2.41%
Facebook Inc. (FB) $29.42 +2.30%
Staples Inc. (SPLS) $11.99 +1.96%

Nasdaq 100 – Fallers
Monster Beverage Corp (MNST) $50.06 -3.53%
Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFM) $88.41 -3.08%
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) $12.77 -2.89%
NetApp Inc. (NTAP) $33.24 -2.46%
Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) $19.40 -2.32%
Baidu Inc. (BIDU) $102.29 -2.25%
Viacom Inc. Class B (VIAB) $56.29 -2.12%
Randgold Resources Ltd. Ads (GOLD) $94.10 -1.81%
O’Reilly Automotive Inc. (ORLY) $90.05 -1.75%
Liberty Media Corp. Capital Class A (LMCA) $118.54 -1.63%

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